Harley MS 2777

It is likely that this manuscript of Virgil’s Aeneid, a text that was commonly used for teaching Latin grammar through Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, was made specifically for the use of a teacher in the classroom. This is indicated by its unusually tall and narrow dimensions, which makes it a so-called ‘holster book’ (see Kwakkel and Newton, Medicine at Monte Cassino (2019), p. 216). On the last two folios are several shorter texts in the same main hand.

Content:

ff. 1r- 98v: Publius Virgilius Maro (Virgil), Aeneid, with occasional corrections and marginal and linear annotations throughout, in hands ranging from the same time as the main text to the 15th century.

ff. 98v-99r: Verse in praise of Virgil, attributed to Caesar Augustus (Octavianus), first Roman Emperor (r. 27 BC-14 AD), beginning: ‘Ergo suppremis potuit vox improba verbis'. Ending: ‘laudetur augeat, placeat, relegatur amatur.’

f. 99r: Pseudo-Ovid, Argumenta Aeneidis, beginning: ‘Virgilius magno quantum concessit Homero’.

ff. 99r-v: Pseudo-Virgil, Carmen de IX musis (Verse on the nine muses), here titled 'Nomina et officia musarum', beginning: ‘Clio gesta canens transactis tempora reddit’.

f. 99v: Hildebert of Lavardin (b. 1056, d. 1133), Archbishop of Tours, De Plagis Egypti (On the Plagues of Egypt), beginning: ‘Prima rubens unda’, and ending: 'primam necat ultima prolem'.

f. 99v: Anonymous four-line riddle about a wife (also in Royal MS 12 C XII, f. 10v), beginning: ‘Uxor abit dupplex, redit una’.

f. 99v: Inscriptions added in the 15th or 16th centuries, including an anonymous motto used as a pen trial, beginning ‘Virtutem posuere dei sudore parandam’.

Decoration:

Large initials (between 3 and 11 lines) with penwork decoration in red marking the beginning of books of the Aeneid (e.g., f. 30r). Some of these large initials are of the wrong letter, and in these cases a smaller brown correct letter has been supplied next to it and close to the opening word (e.g. f. 38v).

Smaller initials in red (now oxidised) ink from f. 33r onwards. Guide letters in the margin marking which capital letters to mark in red sometimes visible in the outer margin (e.g. ff. 76v-77r).